Bracket Fungus for ID

[RobSutton]

Struggling with this smallish brown bracket found growing on an old fallen Larch tree at Malham Tarn NNR. Fungus was partially resupinate and partly projecting out for about 2-3cm and 5cm or so wide.





Tubes angular/circular with what seemed to be a small terminal tooth


Flesh light brown with darker pores


Cystidia present around mouth of pores encrusted




Spores small 4-5μ. sausage shaped.


I first thought it was a Phellinus sp but couldn't find any that had this particular combination of characters, P.pini looked good until I saw the spores. Anybody got any other suggestions? Is there something really obvious I'm missing.

Thanks in advance.

[CapAndBracket]

I think if you had sniffed this one it may have taken you straight to ID.

Here is my image of the spores from thread Nov 7th.



Not as good as your image but hopefully we have the same thing.

Ischnoderma benzoinum.

Cheers J.P.

[RobSutton]

Thanks JP - it looks like a suitable candidate. Spores certainly match mine.

I didn't notice any particular smell but I think the specimen I bought back was probably a little bit old - it certainly wasn't sporing freely. Plus I don't seem particularly sensitive to the variety of fungal smells - most of them smell, well, mushroomy. It's the same with wine but I keep trying!

[RobSutton]

I've been looking again at the descriptions in my books (Fungi of Switzerland and Jordan) for Ischnoderma benzoinum and they seem to fit this specimen pretty well.

The only problem is that they both say cystidia absent whereas I took these very obvious encrusted projections as being cystidia. They really were very obvious and prolific around the opening of the pores could it be that these are not cystidia but encrusations around other type of hyphae? I think it was the quoted lack of cystidia that put me off this species when I first tried ID'ing this specimen.

Originally Posted by RobSutton

Cystidia present around mouth of pores encrusted